Includes: The contests are the same as the regular issue however the cover is a one-of-a-kind made by an artist friend of Smartish Pace. The covers are made of everything from oil paint to collage. Watch the making of the covers. Trust us, you will love it; everyone gets a different cover!

Includes: The contests are the same as the regular issue however the cover is a one-of-a-kind made by an artist friend of Smartish Pace. The covers are made of everything from oil paint to collage. Watch the making of the covers. Trust us, you will love it; no two covers are the same!

Begin in Gladness

James Harms

You’ve said the larger trade is with joy.So here you go again, selecting toysTo give away and toys to keep for what or whom—“That’s not the point,” you say. “I promise, I’ll comeTo bed soon, just let me finish packingThe plastic dinosaurs, all these tackyAnimals your mother gave him.” Well, thereIt is: the never unexpected, the “fairAssessment” of where we are. Where are we?We’re trading down, leaving broken dishes near the seaIn case the footprints fill, in case we needTo find our way back. This isn’t greed;Who doesn’t want more joy? Let’s trade for real.Let’s type a list of what to borrow, what to steal.

James Harms directs the MFA Program in Creative Writing at West Virginia University. His fifth book of poems, After West (Carnegie Mellon), was published in 2008. His poems have appeared in Smartish Pace, Issues 6, 10 and 14. [bio updated 2008]